Mountains rise like so many spikes around us, breaking the clouds and beyond in a way that makes it oh so clear that there's nothing, nothing I can do to escape the mess I'm in. The Arena is a prison every year, there was no way I was getting out alive and not a Victor regardless. Still, the mountains stab the point home, make it clear that we're trapped. That there's no getting out of this, whatever happens.

The ring of tributes looms, going the whole way round out of view, and it's only thirty metres or so to the Cornucopia, they tell us that every year during mandatory viewing. As it stands, though, that thirty metres looks like an infinite distance. The golden horn of the cornucopia shines up, and before I can do anything else there's flashing numbers above the horn. Signalling the start of the Games, how close it is to beginning, and my heart is already beating out a staccato drumbeat.

The last of the tributes rises, and I can see the group around me but the terror's making it all too difficult to make out faces. There's blonde hair there, could be one of the Squaddies or. Well, literally anybody else. There's enough blonde hair in the group, among us Tributes that to distinguish among us would be a damn sight too close to impossible. And impossible, those kind of odds don't play into my hand if I make the wrong decision. Which feels increasingly likely, what with my throat closing up already.

There's a flash of brown skin, which could be Piper or Lysa's District Partner or half a dozen of the other children. I don't know, don't want to wave because drawing attention to myself is a bad idea. Always is, lest it's someone I don't quite want to have an issue with yet.

The final pedestal rises into place, a shivering boy atop it, and in an instant we're fine. We're free, even. Safe standing on the pedestals, and knowing that in ten minutes at least one of us and more probably more will be dead. The countdown starts, beaming at us all from above the Cornucopia.

Sixty. The air is cold around me, and in an instant I can get the reasoning for each piece of the outfit. The clothes are tight, feel tight at the very least, but what doesn't. The air's closing around me, swallowing me up and I shouldn't be scared. But, well. I definitely am.

Fifty. I look to my left, see the boy from Seven. He's looking at the mouth of the cornucopia, almost facing him, with a glee that scares me. No, not glee. More like a kind of grim acceptance of what he needs to do. Then his eyes are flashing elsewhere, and I can tear mine off him. Look to my right, see.

Forty. Eloise. Thank god, one of Robin's friends. A shivering thirteen year old in clothes that look far too big for her to put it nicely. Not having a Squad kid either side of me is definitely good, better than I could have hoped for. She's thirteen, as well. I thin, if push comes to shove, I can take on a thirteen year old. Could. But.

Thirty. The clock is ticking, seconds seeming to move faster. Take a deep breath, smell pure mountain air coursing around me. Smell it and know that this is real, not even some Capitol trick. This is as real as anything.

Twenty. The sweat is pooling already. The clothes are meant to keep us warm, to make sure we don't freeze, but maybe it would be better to not wear them because even if the cold is gnawing at my face they're already overheating me.

Ten. A rippling blast comes from the other side of the cornucopia. Someone's stepped on the mines, or. Well. Something happened.

Zero. A horn ripples across the Arena, roars a bellow that seems to go on for an age. For a second, everything is still. Quiet, frozen in the wake of noise that's fleeing outwards every which way.

I hesitate. Hear my heart beating, feel it roll out my chest and into my mouth and slip back down my throat far too smoothly for my liking.

I panic. The terror grasps my newly returned heart with a squeeze that threatens to break it, but I can't let that hit. I can't let it drag me down.

I run.

The boots are heavy. Heavy is bad for running. I don't care if they're heavy though, because for the first instant after the horn blast I feel free as a bird. Leap forward, rushing with the kind of speed usually reserved for creatures of the sky. I'm glad of the speed, but it'll break soon enough, and then where will I be? No, I need to get moving. Need to keep moving. Need to escape.

The first scream comes quick, followed by another cry. I pay it no mind. Can't pay it mind. I snatch at the nearest backpack, feel my fingers fail to grasp the strap for a second before I can tug it in and hear the noise around me. I got promised life, so I can afford to be a little careless. It's heavier than expected, the strap weighs down on my hand and while that might be good. Well, it's damned heavy in this flash of the moment. I take a second, get it properly slung over my shoulder and can hear the clink of metal on metal inside. That sounds good, and I want to keep looking, but it takes a brief flash to remember. That. Well, I'm in the Hunger Games.

I get the backpack over my shoulder. Properly, this time, no messing about. Then a second. This one is lighter, and that's not as good a sign so it's another second lost to disappointment.

With seconds ticking away, my hand flashes out, grabs a knife that feels to be calling my name from the stack of items available, but I can't take anything else, don't have time to take anything else.

Stand, because standing is good. Standing means I can gather my footing, look around and consider the available options. Rather than blundering headlong into danger, I turn towards the edge of the circle. There's a nice gap. I don't stop, I run, and I can hear the first laughter as well. It's excited, and loud, and bright, and in an instant I turn and run. Look for Piper and Lysa, hesitate a second. Nine's staggering away, an axe blow to her gut having sent intestines spilling over the floor, and for a second I want to go in, offer to help her. Instead, I almost die.

An arrow flits past my head, I turn to see a shrugging Dazzle with her bow in one hand and a smile on her lips. In an instant the thrill of terrified panic runs down mme, my back and through my throat as she points it at me for a second, before dropping it. "Nine was all but dead, she had an axe to the gut. Probably Seven, and I'd like to get after that. Have fun while you can! Run along now, Five."

Five. Not Millie Stahl, not anyone. Five. That's all I am now, but when I can see Lysa and Piper running for the edge, I make moves to catch up with them. Have to catch up with them, the way they're making is towards winding hills and a forest that looks to go on forever, and that's the kind of cover you need when there's predators about and danger around. I'm scared, really am, but there's no other option. Still the blizzard of noise, distracting noise that lasts an age.

I hear Oleander wail, turn back for a second. After all, there has to be something happening, I don't want my first warning to be a blade to the back. I don't turn long. Just long enough to see Katla, knife in one hand, drag the girl to the ground with the other and drive the knife into her back. First once, then again, and again, and again. Look up at me with a grin of white, winking and then lunging in a flow of blonde hair and blue eyes towards the running boy from Nine.

I don't see what happens next. I reach my allies, and in an instant we're turning to run beyond what's strictly necessary. Get as far away from the Cornucopia. That was the plan, is always the plan. It worked, it definitely worked, because all three of us are away and it's going far too smoothly.

"Hi." "Hi." "Hi." Hellos exchanged, but they're breathless, filled with a frozen terror that's swiftly defrosting. There's nothing else to do but run, and run we do. Nothing else, just run. Just run. Just run.

I stop for a second, hand off one of the backpacks to Lysa. The one with more in it, for my own speed as much as anything. But then I can't move. Something inside's been compartmentalizing it all, putting all the fear and terror and worry into a box that I promise myself I'll not open. But stopping jarred it, the box is open and in an instant all that's flooding out. I shouldn't be letting it get to me, but truth be told I'm too. Well, unprepared.

Piper's got her hand on my jacket, Lysa's standing besides her, and there's a scream above the whirling of wind that's blowing across the Arena far more suddenly than it has any right to be doing. "Millie, we gotta go! Come on!" Then I get to my senses, and now my boots are plodding through the grass in a run. The knife is in my hand, and I want to stab something, but instead I can only carry it, knowing that it'll do ill good. We're maybe 50 metres from the Cornucopia now.

It goes wrong. It has to go wrong, I knew it could go wrong, but for it to happen like this is galling in the best case, and as it goes? Well, it's a lot worse than galling.

Lysa slips with a wail, and Piper's doubling back to help her. Lysa's up and running, but I can see Piper stiffen when she straightens to follow. Go still even while standing, hands flying to her chest as if feeling for something there, and there's a trident embedded in her back. If this was a story, she'd pull it out and be fine. She'd make a heroic speech, turn around and prepare to buy us time. If this was a story, she'd be doing something, anything. She got the highest training score, she was the champion of out alliance. If I was going to pick one of us three, I'd have picked her. Instead she's still as a statue before falling, trident sticking up from the ground like a wire pole, straight and true.

And now she's dead.

Four's small, now, but still easy to make out atop the cornucopia hill as I see her shrug. There's nothing we can do, and I can only whisper apologies into the air around us. I think Four means to follow us, but there's an ear-splitting yell even at this distance, and in an instant she's running towards it. Not even trying to retrieve her weapon, but going for it as if she has a death wish.

There's nothing we can do. There was nothing we could have done. I keep telling myself that, hand on Lysa's back as I urge her forward another hundred, two hundred metres, but in an instant we're breaking through the forest. The wind's ripped out of us, and fifty metres in she tries to stop. Instead, hand on her arm, I caution in no uncertain terms against it. Slow to a light jog, and my sides are burning, breaths are ragged but I can't stop. Can never stop.

"Lysa. We need to keep going." My voice is unconvinced, even I don't believe what it's saying, but in an instant I know what I need to say, tapping the girl on the shoulder with a distinctly sympathetic smile. The kind of smile I'd give to a client who'd drunk far too much and needed to get over it. "If we stop, if we stop, we die. Like Piper. And I don't know about you, but dying like Piper is pretty certainly not on my wishlist. So we keep going. We go forwards, only forwards. We put this mess behind us. And then, when we're gone, we can say goodbye."

There's a wobble in my voice, the kind of wobble that shouldn't be there, but she nods. We go forwards, don't stop because we can't stop and if stopping means death? Then I'm in no real hurry, am in quite the opposite of a hurry instead, to invoke that death.

The next part of the walk through the forest is slow, filled with crackles as we step on the leaf litter and underbrush. The occasional forcing through thorn bushes that spike us through the outfits but leave no long-term injuries, the more common worry as something rustles leaves and branches only to every time realize that it's a bird, or a deer, or something else that was shown in models at the Training Center. There's one we can't quite place, one that spooks all of us, and that one is more worrying. Still, can't guess as to what it is. Safer to just keep moving forwards.

There's things flitting around us. The buzz of bees and flies, droning through the air in lazy arcs. The flap of the wings of a butterfly, except these butterflies are nothing like those from last year. For that, I'm glad. Very glad. Even the calls of birds, I think, though these sound nothing like the harsher cries from back home.

Lysa's panting, more than I am. Even if the walk is tiring, at least I've been up this long on my feet before. Work was good, or at least adequate, for the Games. She, on the other hand, clearly hasn't done this long before, and with the heavier backpack I'd expect she's finding it that little bit harder to keep going.

It takes a good movement of the sun in the sky, and reaching a narrow stream that winds a meandering run along the forest, before we stop. Drop to knees, Lysa flopping to the floor and shrugging the backpack off once we've crossed the stream without even wet feet inside boots. My hair is soaked in sweat, a droplet has even fallen into my eye and stings something awful, but we made it.

We made it.

There's still no cannons firing in the distance, that at the least a good thing. Likely means the Squad is still at the Cornucopia finishing up, and that can only be a safety for us. Besides, the stream is nice, and the air is crisp, and it's the perfect place to open and upturn bags.

So we do. So bags are unzipped and upturned and before long there's material pouring out of them, even as Lysa and I shake to make sure we've got everything.

There wasn't a lot in mine. Four matches, and a strip that I'd assume will be used up after four strikes of a match. Loose, which doesn't give much room for error, even risks we'll just lose them because loose matches and a tiny loose strip in a great forest like this aren't exactly a recipe for positive endings in terms of keeping what we have.

Some tablets as well, small and looking medicinal until my arm is tapped and I'm told they're for water. Apparently they use them back home for the animals to make sure the water isn't bad, albeit the animals aren't the kind of thing I expect she was taking care of. Not a rich girl, not Lysa. The question of where she knows that from, though, can be shelved for later.

In her bag, it's more concrete. A water bottle, metal and full. Which suggests that they don't expect water to be an issue, I think. Still, one bottle among two people isn't going to go very far at the best of times. Two people who need to keep moving, who need to keep walking even less.

A metal cooking pot as well, but with no fuel, stand or anything else of that it's less useful than could be hoped for. Still, it's heavy-ish, and could double as a useful weapon in case it's needed. The handle is useful in that regard, thank the Capitol.

Past that, there's not much useful. Metal spikes I'd assume are meant to pin something down, but for the moment at least no something to pin down and no chance of being able to do that because there's nothing to get them in with. A light torch, assumedly so we can see where we're going even when it's dark. Except with no batteries. And a pair of sunglasses, but when neither of us see a use for them they go into the water, clearly hitting a fish on the head when it floats to the surface, stunned.

It's not bad, and with two of us we can probably get more use out of this. Everything goes back in the bag, and soon enough there's nothing much else to do. We're sitting on the edge of the stream, when finally an idea hits me.

"Do you want to say a few words?"

Lysa's silent for a moment, considering what I've said, before eventually nodding. "Sure. About..." The words for now she clearly can't find are filled in by my words, soft and trying to seem more soothing than is perhaps absolutely necessary.

"About Piper. She was... nice. I think you knew her a little longer than I did, but she was good. Probably the best of us." I draw a fervent nod for this at the least.

"She was!" Lysa's words chime in. "She really tried. Came up to me that very first morning, asked me to join her because she knew I looked a bit. Well, and she thought I could do something. And now she's."

The words stick. Not just in her throat but when I try to offer some solace mine as well. And I get it, I think. It's because we've lost the person who actually brought the group together, and with that I'm left to take the reins as the next oldest. Not like Lysa can do it, not when tears are forming in her eyes like tiny pearls and it's all I can do to lean in, offer a smile, a hug that seems not to warm her heart but instead to chill mine.

"She's dead." Lysa finally gets the words out, and in an instant more come tumbling out. Worried words, words that speak to a fear I've been trying (and often failing) to ignore. "I don't want to die. Millie, I don't want to die. Mama and Papa are back home, and they want me, and I can't die. Millie, I-"

Nine cannon fire. Then it all goes silent. Including the panicked voice, which honestly might be the best thing at this point. Gives time for us to sit and think on the bank, until my hands fall to her shoulders and give a light shake. I'm beginning to feel the cold chew at my cheeks, don't want to say sat much longer, but as long as Lysa is like this (almost in tears), I can't exactly leave her. We're Allies. Allies leaving each other could be fatal, could split whatever money we have between me and her.

I shake again. "Lysa. Lysa. Look at me." She looks. "One of us, at least, is going to die. I might die, you might die, truth be told both of us might die." I get a look like I've lost my mind for a moment. Maybe I have... It's a possibility, at least. "But if we're going to stay alive, as long as we can, we stick together. You hear me?" A nod this time, small but there and muffled underneath the hood. "And if we stick together, we can get Sponsors. Hey? We can get Sponsors, they can give us loads of money, and we can get out of this."

She nods, again, and I'm left a little tired of the consistent passivity. Possibly put too much anger into my voice, anger more at the circumstances we've than with her but it bleeds through enough either way. "Look. We either get through this, or we don't, but if we do." Her eyes fill with worry, I have to calm this down. "When we do, I'd prefer that you're on top form, ok?"

"Ok."

Once the bags are repacked, distributing the weight at the least a little more evenly, it's time to stand and move. Time for each of us to get walking again, glancing around at the forest and hearing. Well. Nothing. No footsteps, no running, nothing except the breaths we're taking in and out, in and out as the walk continues. It's not exactly the most exciting part of the Games, but after the run, and given what's at stake? Maybe losing some of the adrenaline isn't the absolute worst thing in the world. Maybe it's better to be walking at a nice sedate pace.

Author's Note: We are getting a different PoV next chapter - felt I should warn you all in advance! I'm intending to hiatus this for a bit due to having lost some of Millie's voice - not permanent, but we shift to weekly Chance updates until probably end of February. Thought this was a nice cap off.

As an aside, I also post on AO3 (also under ClearedPipes), and post exclusive maps and lore stuff on my tumblr, so y'all should definitely check those out especially with FFN on the fritz I'd hate to lose my reader base!